Securing Abia for Xmas

Jonathan Johnson, Abia State Commissioner of police:

Insecurity in Abia State drastically wanes business activities in Aba, the commercial hub of Eastern Nigerian
By Levinus Nwabughiogu
Saturday, October 10, 2009 was a wild day for the residents of Aba and its evirons. Though the day, like any other, waxed bright, it however did not herald any sign of metamorphosing into a black day for the people. At about 7am, that morning, when people had all left their houses for their usual businesses, it appeared as if a civil war suddenly erupted within the Waterside area of Ogbor Hill in the metropolis. From the blues, some suspected kidnapping group engaged the Abia State Anti- Terrorist Squad in a gun duel. The heavy shelling that early morning sent the people scampering towards different directions for safety. The unscheduled race only ended after some victims had been hit by stray bullets. Most unfortunate was the case of a lady of about 23 whom sources said was not that lucky as one of the flying bullets found a resting place in her head, ferociously smashing her skull into shreds. This happened around Omoba Road, within the Water side axis through which the hoodlums escaped. An eye-witness and Lago-based indigene, Enyioma Nwokoma who was in the town, and had that morning gone to see the Archdeacon at St. Andrews Anglican Church, in the area, to collect the church programme for the burial of his late father, narrowly escaped death. According to him, he realised he found safety in someone’s toilet a few minutes after the pandemonium ended.
Also, on Friday, November 13, 2009 , along Azikiwe Road , sources said that an unidentified woman, a pedestrian, was hit by what everybody suspected to be a stray bullet whose origin could not be ascertained.
Indeed, investigations by The Source show that since the beginning of the year, Aba and its environs have been witnessing an orgy of unprecedented attacks by kidnappers who sometimes operated freely and succeeded in their mission. Initially, it was sophisticated armed robbery attacks on banks and other financial institutions as Bullion vans were waylaid, robbed and sometimes the police escorts of these vans outrightly killed, burnt alive or made to suffer terminal injuries. The Source gathered that a good number of policemen lost their lives in such assault and confrontation along Aba-Ikot Ekpene highway sometime last year. A similar situation also ocurred early this year around 7- up bottling plant in Aba. In fact, the situation persisted until the banks took a drastic measure of using helicopter to convey cash. But unknown to them, that was an invitation to kidnapping, a new wave of crime which for sometime held pervasive in the Niger Delta. Since this year, kidnapping became a somewhat thriving business that a couple of high and mighty, professionals and politicians, and in fact, any individual with a relatively chubby financial background, had either been a victim or almost always a target as the crime escalated to other areas in the country.
Investigations indicate that the ill-development seems to incubate in Abia as more than reasonable number of individuals had been abducted in recent times. For instance, Dr. Christian Aluka, a gynaecologist and Deputy Provost, Abia State College of Medicine, Aba was kidnapped last June and ransom demanded by the hoodlums. The senator representing Abia South in the Senate and Vice- Chairman, Inter-Parliamentary affairs Senate Committee, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, was to suffer similar fate in the hands of kidnappers – an operation in which one of his security details was feared dead in a shootout with the criminals. Apart from these two men, The Source learnt that a good number of families in Abia State have had to either part with a ransom or bury their beloved ones lost to cases of kidnapping. The situation in Aba is made worse as virtually all businesses and families with good financial standing have all fled the place for safety elsewhere in other more peracable states. Those who still remain or visiting the place have a convoy of heavy police escorts guarding them and their houses.
The Source’s findings reveal that the business activities in Aba have abysmally slowed, just as hotels do not enjoy huge patronage both in Aba the state and one of commercial hubob of the Eastern part of the country, and Umuahia the state capital.
But as a way of curbing the menace, the Abia State government recently moved to further equip the police and other security agencies with better equipment.
According to the chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Kingsley Emeruwa, over 60 patrol vans were purchased and distributed to the security outfits in the state. But while the measure of checkmating crimewave appears not to be yielding much fruits, some desperate approaches have been resorted to by the people. One of them is the ban on commercial motorcycles (Okada) by the state government in June this year. On this, Emeruwa said: “One thing with armed robbery and criminalities is that when you introduce a measure to check it, they (armed robbers), also go back to the drawing board and devise other means of carring out their nefarious activities. But government is not going to leave any stone unturned to ensure that if not totally stopped, it is at least, reduced to its barest minimum. That is why various measures are being introduced, even those that meant hardship on the people, because desperate situations require desperate measures. That was why the government had to go out of its way to proscribe the use of Okada. In the first instance, commercial motorcycles, when the desired result wasn’t coming at an optimal level, they had to clamp a total ban on the use of Okada in the state. And that appeared to be the antidote, because investigations revealed that when these crimes are committed, the culprits easily zoomed off, and they monitor and tail their victims with the aid of bikes. They can penetrate any environment or locality and take off at the slightest execution of their agenda”, he said.
The public is, however, divided by the position of the government. While some accuse the government of making life unbearable for them by banning the use of Okada without any viable alternatives, stressing that Okada operators are not kidnappers or their agents, others say that the government was right as the kidnapping activities have slowed over the last one month.
When it could no longer contend with the increasing tide of kidnapping, of which he was once a victim, Chairman, Nwankpa and the authorities of Obingwa Local Government Area relocated the secretariat from Mgboko to a safer place in Eastern Ngwa, close to Umuobiakwa Divisional Police station. Rural roads in the area are adjudged as easy escape routes of the kidnappers. This situation sent shivers down the spines of the local government staff who risked being kidnapped until the relocation.
While The Source could not get the chairman of the Council for comments, his Aba North counter-part, Ifeanyi Ikwecheghe whose domain shares boundaries with Obingwa, however shared his views. “It is rumoured that most of the people that come into Abia to do these things adopt a soul and go back to their hiding place and ask for a ransom– are actually not from Abia. But the governor has, of course, held so many meetings with the traditional rulers, with the local government chairmen, with the chieftains in the security agencies to see how we can curb this menace. It is very unfortunate because these days, it is as if kidnapping is more lucrative than armed robbery; because it is almost risk-free. But our people, Igbo people, are industrious people. People that are into business: Trading, commerce. We are not kidnappers. And I want to discourage those young people that are busy trying to make this a profession. This is wrong”, he said.
The Source learnt that until the coming of the Anti -Terrorist Squad (ATS) some two months ago, Aba was seemingly a den of Kidnappers as mobile police, the Joint Police/Army patrol team, the Abia Vigilante Service, all seemed subdued by the superior five power and modus oparandi of the kidnappers.
Security Adviser to the Abia State Governor, Colonel Ezichi Kalu (rtd) and the Police Public Relations Officer, (PPRO), Abia State Police Command, Ali Okechukwu, told The Source that indeed the state has been enjoying relative peace for some time now. While Kalu called the development an ‘offspring’ of the militancy in the Niger Delta states that share common boundaries with Abia, the Police PPRO said the police will rather not rest on its oars, even though there is relative peace at the moment consequent upon the measures adopted by the new Commissioner of Police in the state, Jonathan Johnson. Both security experts agreed that the case of Abia connotes no peculiarity when compared with what obtains elsewhere in the country, appealing that people should not be left with the impression that as it was sometime ago, so the situation would remain.
Though, there  is relatively a serene atmosphere in Aba and Umuahia, at least, for the moment, this magazine observed that there is still heavy presence of mobile policemen including men of the ATS, just as road blocks and checkpoints are mounted almost at every stone throw distance within Aba. For instance, from Opobo Road junction to Bata, a distance of about three minutes drive, there are more than five checkpoints. The situation is the same from Aba Central Park to Osisioma Junction, just as the East axis of Ngwa Road is no different.
To this end, The Source observed that the police are having a swell time with the town service commercial bus drivers, taxis and other motorists who mandatorily handout N20 notes at those points. Apart from causing suffocating traffic jams, the monies, The Source observed, is given willy-nilly by the intimidated motorists. The drivers, at a time could not bear this; hence they went on strike on Tuesday, November 3, to register their aggression. On that day, commuters had to trek back to their houses as there were no other means of public transportation. Those who spoke to The Source blamed the government for their fate.
But the Abia State PPRO denied the one-day warning strike by the bus drivers, saying it was a meeting day for the drivers who do so routinely. But sources said that the Bus Drivers’ Association charged their members, especially those on town service, not to give the police any more money, warning that anybody caught will pay a fine of N500. In the same direction, the PPRO warned that no police man on any checkpoint is authorised to collect tolls in whatever name, stressing that a good number of them who were caught recently are about facing Orderly Room Trial.
Indeed, Aba residents seem confused. While, thy contend with the N20 illegal toll, the general populace is intimidated by the armed security agents, who bask in their euphoria of seeing every pedestrian raise his or her two hands up at certain junctions, signifying surrender to the authorities of the state. Failure to do that attracts sanction such a sitting on stagnant water, kneeling and rolling on the ground for some time irrespective of sex, status, itinerary or dress colour of the passer-by.
Sources told The Source that the exercise started with the arrival of the ATS, who at certain junctions in the town quizzed some suspects in those heydays of kidnapping. Though the exercise has since stopped, both the mobile and conventional police have continued to intimidate and flagrantly embarrass their victims. But while the PPRO agreed that some situations like that may have existed but has since stopped, the S A to the governor, Colonel Kalu(rtd) denied knowledge of any such thing. Both men, however, maintained that the state was not in any war situation to warrant such maltreament of the citizenry.
Some persons who spoke to The Source, however said that Abia indeed, needs God’s intervention to rescue it from both its present state of anarchy, infrastructural decay, kidnapping and a host of other social vices.
Indeed, as Christmas approachs, The Source learnt that the people of God’s own state” may not be in a haste to visit home as a huge number of them have since fled the state.
But the PPRO, Okecukwu, reacting said:” We are on top of the situation. We have a perfect security arrangement on ground and there is peace, not a relative peace. We have a quiet environment right now. You do not solve your problem by running away from it. They should come back let us put heads together. If there is anything, all we have been asking is give us credible information where anything is happening, let us know immediately. We have the men. We have people who are still ready to die for their country. They have been attacking and killing policemen. We have been trying our best. This time, God has started the good work. At least, for the past three weeks, there is no single reported case of kidnapping or robbery anywhere in this state. “So people should come back home and do their business because you do not solve your problem by running away from it”, the PPRO of the Abia state command said.